Electronic devices, such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDA's), often contain firmware and application software that are either provided by the manufacturers of the electronic devices, by telecommunication carriers, or by third parties. These firmware and application software often contain software bugs. New versions of the firmware and software are periodically released to fix the bugs or to introduce new features, or both.
There is a problem with generating update packages in an efficient mode when at least a portion of the content in a mobile phone image is compressed, or encrypted, or both. There is a problem in updating code in the mobile handset when the code is compressed.
When a operating system such as Linux is used in a mobile device, the file system is likely to be using some compression technologies. It is quite complicated to update firmware or kernel when it is compressed. It is often not possible to determine how much space is needed if such code is to be updated. It is not possible to update the code using techniques that you would employ if the firmware was not compressed. These techniques all have to be replaced by different techniques that address the constraints of such a mobile device. In addition, the Linux systems have their own file systems on top of a kernel. These file systems impose their own access mechanisms, etc. Thus, updating Linux based mobile devices is not easy or trivial and new techniques have to be developed.
Often there are at least two different types of compression used on the Embedded Linux Platforms. Updating firmware or software in Linux platforms where compression techniques are used is very difficult.
Other problems and deficiencies of the prior art will become apparent to one skilled in the art after referencing such art in view of the reminder of this specification and drawings.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.